Chapter V 



Large Private Places^ 



WELBECK. The view from the principal apart- 

 ments should bear some proportion to the impor- 

 tance of the house itself; not so much in the quantity 

 or extent of the prospect as in the nature of the ob- 

 jects which compose the scenery; an extensive prospect 

 being only applicable to a castle, a villa, or a belvedere. 

 The landscape from a palace should everywhere appear 

 appropriate to the magnificence or pleasure of its in- 

 habitants : the whole should be, or at least appear to 

 be, a park, unlimited and unconfined by those lines 

 of division or boundary which characterize the large 

 grass-fields of a dairy-farm. Yet a park has a character 

 distinct from a forest; for while we admire and even 

 imitate the romantic wildness of nature, we ought never 

 to forget that a park is the habitation of men, and not 

 solely devoted to beasts of the forest. I am convinced 

 that some enthusiasic admirers of uncultivated nature 

 are too apt to overlook this distinction. Park scenery 

 compared with forest scenery is like an historical picture 

 compared with a landscape; nature must alike prevail 

 in both, but that which relates to man should have 

 a higher place in the scale of arts. 



The objects which nature has furnished at Welbeck 

 are of the most beautiful kind, and truly in character 

 with the dignity of the place. The vast range of woods, 

 the extensive lawns, the broad expanse of river, and the 

 astonishing oaks scattered about the park seem to 



